Slightly tangential, we already have amazing laundry robots. They are called washing and drying machines. We don't give these marvels enough credit, mostly because they aren't shaped like humans.
Humanoid robots are mostly a waste of time. Task-shaped robots are much easier to design, build, and maintain... and are more reliable. Some of the things you mention might needs humanoid versatility (loading the dishwasher), others would be far better served by purpose-built robots (laundry sorting).
Sadly current "dishwasher" models are neither self-loading nor unloading. (Seems like they should be able to take a tray of dishes, sort them, load them, and stack them after cleaning.)
The problem is more doing it in sufficiently little space, and using little enough water and energy. Doing one that you just feed dishes individually and that immediate wash them and feed them to storage should be entirely viable, but it'd be wasteful, and it'd compete with people having multiple small drawer-style dishwashers, offering relatively little convenience over that.
It seems most people aren't willing to pay for multiple dishwashers - even multiple small ones or set aside enough space, and that places severe constraints on trying to do better.
There isn't a "task-shaped" robot for unstructured and complex manipulation, other than high DoF arms with vision and neural nets. For example, a machine which can cook food would be best solved with two robotic arms. However, these stationary arms would be wasted if they were just idling most of the time. So, you add locomotion and dynamic balancing with legs. And now these two arms can be used in 1000 different tasks, which makes them 1000x more valuable.
So, not only is the human form the only solution for many tasks, it's also a much cheaper solution considering the idle time of task-specific robots. You would need only a single humanoid robot for all tasks, instead of buying a different machine for each task. And instead of having to design and build a new machine for each task, you'll need to just download new software for each task.
I agree. I don’t know where this obsession comes from. Obsession with resembling as close to humans as possible. We’re so far from being perfect. If you need proof just look at your teeth. Yes, we’re relatively universal, but a screwdriver is more efficient at driving in screws that our fingers. So please, stop wasting time building perfect universal robots, build more purpose-build ones.
Given we have shaped so many tasks to fit our bodies, it will be a long time before a bot able to do a variety/majority of human tasks the human way won’t be valuable.
1000 machines specialized for 1000 tasks are great, but don’t deliver the same value as a single bot that can interchange with people flexibly.
The shape doesn't matter! Non-humanoid shapes give minir advantages on specific tasks but for a general robot you'll have a hard time finding a shape much more optimal than humanoid. And if you go with humanoid you have so much data available! Videos contain the information of which movements a robot should execude. Teleoperation is easy.
This is the bitter lesson! The shape doesn't matter, any shape will work with the right architecture, data and training!
Purpose build robots are basically solved. Dishwashers, laundry machines, assembly robots, etc. the moat is a general purpose robot that can do what a human can do.
Great examples. They are simple, reliable, efficient and effective. Far better than blindly copying what a human being does. Maybe there are equally clever ways of doing things like folding clothes.
Humanoid robots are mostly a waste of time. Task-shaped robots are much easier to design, build, and maintain... and are more reliable. Some of the things you mention might needs humanoid versatility (loading the dishwasher), others would be far better served by purpose-built robots (laundry sorting).